The Bad, Bad Birds Brigade
by ChuckNorrisLeftFist
Summary: Updated: Canary Pavarotti, Brittany, and the Warblers save the world from the zombie, but not quite according to plan. Scrambled eggs, an improvised spotlight, Breadstix, and "Anything you can do I can do better" all play a role. Note: Rather silly.
1. Say Chirp to your new hero, ladies!

_**Introduction**_

Humans. Sometimes that's all you really need to say. _Humans._

First, just because I have a high voice compared to them, they get the bright idea of calling me Pavarotti. They couldn't even tell that I have a deep, rumbling, you'd lock up the ladies if they'd let you, bass voice. Call me Paul Robeson, that would make more sense. Heck, call me Barry White. But no, they called me Pavarotti. Speciesist, that's what it is, downright speciesiest.

But then, when you're one of the Badass Beaks Bird Brigade and you're sent on assignment, you've got to do what you've got to do. Even if it means putting up with humans. I infiltrated the canary community at Dalton, sent the one I look most like back to the Canary Islands, and settled into the condo that those humans like to call a cage. Like I couldn't use a twig and have that door open faster than a teenaged human's hormones.

Oh, and speaking of teenaged hormones, do _not _get me started on that. Just don't. And they use the phrase "bird brain" like it's a bad thing.

I wouldn't get caught in last season's feathers any more than James Bond would get caught in Smurfs boxers, and my latest human staff member was getting all worried about the fact that unlike humans, we quiet down when we're changing, saving our energy for something meaningful.

Another human staff member told him not to worry about me, but then a message came over the magnetic waves that we birds mostly use for migration but also for any really hot gossip or even emergency broadcasts like this one.

"Sure enough, he's on the move. You were right, Code Name Pavarotti, he's headed for Ohio."


	2. We meet at last, nemesis of the week

I fluffed my feathers and then settled them down again, gave my beak a couple of strokes against the cuttlefish to add that extra sharpness and then did the same with my claws. This operation called for my generalship skills rather than sheer brute force, but as my mama always told me, there's nothing wrong with sheer brute force.

I opened my condo door, stretched, and perched opposite the door. Soon enough, my latest staff member opened the door and walked in, gaping up as I flew through. "Pavarotti! Pavarotti, come back!"

Did he think that I was a dog? I made up my mind. Despite my being tolerant of human foibles, when I came back, he was going to pay for the comments about the cat, the coal mine, and now this "Pavarotti, come back!" with one of my specially-made air-delivered shampoos, if you know what I mean.

"Toodles," I whistled to him, and to the other humans who came to help. Sure, I was on a mission, but I never refrained from mixing business and pleasure, so as I flew along, broadcasting along the Bird Net for backup to meet me at the likely rendezvous with my Nemesis of the Week, I fluttered just out of their reach, at times hesitating as though I'd actually let one of them catch me.

Meanwhile, I got another update on my opponent. He was on a Convenient Coincidences Airlines flight to Cleveland and then catching their limo service to Dalton. While amusing myself with letting them rush around closing the windows before I slipped out the last open one, I also snickered at how clueless TSA had to be. They couldn't even keep a fairly sizeable zombie out of the country, probably because he wasn't carrying liquids or gels over the regulation size and wasn't on the Don't Fly list.

As I perched in a tree outside and occasionally flicked my tail at the humans gathering below, something odd struck me. I'd heard less and less other chatter on the Bird Net and even the last official update had sounded scattered.

"Hello? Anybody out there? Did anybody hear my call for backup?"

There was nobody else on the Bird Net.

"Hello? Hello?"

I waited a minute.

"Hello?"

Now I was getting worried.

"Hello?"

"Are you a penguin?"

That voice wasn't a bird.

"Because I wonder if you could tell me if penguins ever play hopscotch. If they don't, I could teach them."

"Who the heck are you?"

"I'm Brittany S. Piers."

"I'm...I'm using the code name Pavarotti."

"That's a nice code name. I use my own name for a code name because otherwise I forget sometimes. And that way, people know who I am."

"Look, aren't there any other birds around?"

"I see a sparrow out the window. And sometimes a ladybug tells me about her day, does that count?"

"Ladybugs aren't birds." I couldn't believe this day. I was flying to meet a zombie who was riding in a limousine, followed by a bunch of singing humans crammed into two cars, and talking on the Bird Net to a human who thinks that ladybugs are birds. And I was going to fight the zombie without backup. For the first time in my life, I thought it possible that I might get my tail feathers kicked.

"Why would a zombie want to kick your tail feathers?"

The human could actually read my thoughts. I didn't know they had advanced enough brains even to understand us, let alone read our thoughts.

"I'm part of the Badass Beaks Bird Brigade. We kick zombie ass as well as any other ass that needs kicking. I was expecting at least three emus as backup."

"I can kick ass. So can Santana."

"Is Santana the ladybug?"

"No, silly, she's not a ladybug. But I think she could be if she wanted to."

I paused in a tree to regroup my thoughts. Unfortunately, the thought that a Badass Bird has got to do what a Badass Bird has got to do won over the thought that I could just go home, taking an indirect route just to mess more with the human minds, and be curled up in my condo with my head under my wing by the time they finally circled back.

"Do you want me to go get help?"

I gave it another moment's thought, fluttering to another tree just as one of the humans had climbed about halfway up the one I'd graced with my presence. With no emus and not even a decent-sized crow on the way, I had to take what I could get, and a human who could talk on Bird Net, as well as a Santana, whatever species that might be, was better than nothing. I hoped. I broadcast my location and perched along the highway that was going to bring my opponent here, literally whistling in the dark.

Feeling utterly flabbergasted was an entirely new sensation for me. We birds are logical and intelligent creatures, as opposed to mammals, especially humans. I chirped down to the humans below me, just to keep things interesting for them.

Just as the lights of the approaching limousine shone along the paving, another car pulled up. Two female humans stepped out. I think one of them was what they call blonde and the other one was brunette, but all humans look alike to me.

"Pavarotti, is that you?" That had to be the Brittany S. Piers one. Figuring "Why not?" I fluttered down to land on her shoulder, watching the male humans look at one another in consternation and her in amazement. Though I don't think the amazement was just at the fact that I was peeping quietly in her ear since several of them were looking at the other one in the same way.

If humans were a sensible species, they'd have been gathering twigs already for some nest-building competition.

But that wasn't what I was there for—criticizing the humans is just a hobby. The limousine stopped and the driver got out to open the door.

"Brains! Pasta! Pasta with brains!" exclaimed the zombie as it emerged.

Zombie!Luciano Pavarotti, we meet at last. And unless Brittany S. Piers and some other singing humans are more use than I thought, I fear the advantage is yours.


	3. I can see why he'd want to film it

Dammit all, where were the emus? Emus could eviscerate a zombie with one solid kick, and I'd coordinated several excellent operations of that kind.

The male humans were looking uncertainly at Zombie P and one another, Santana had her hands on her hips and was frowning at him, and Brittany pointed at my latest human staff member and said that sometimes he smells like vanilla.

"Lady, vanilla's not exactly on my mind now. We've got to get the zombie's head off."

"Would he like that? I think he wants pasta instead and we could take him to Breadstix."

"He also wants brains."

"People say that I don't have any brains but I think I do because sometimes I can hear the elf that cleans up my dirty dreams every six weeks. I wish he wouldn't because I like them."

Zombie P had almost grabbed my newest staff member who jumped out of the way just in time. "Brains! Pasta!"

"Hey, Zombie! Yeah, you!" I fluttered in front of him, performing the Killdeer Maneuver, also known as The Broken Wing Act. It didn't distract him from the humans. I had to get him away from them. If I could get him to chase me, that would work. "I always liked Domingo better!" That'd make him good and peeved.

Unfortunately, death doesn't make humans any smarter, so he wasn't able to understand me. I tried the Killdeer another time, and the zombie didn't even notice.

Unlike the humans, whose plan seemed to consist solely of standing there staring, I was turning over several different plans. But none of them would work until I could get him closer to the car. "Brittany, get in the nearest car and turn it on. Be ready to drive when I say so."

"Drive where?"

"Drive over him."

She pouted. "No. He's like a big zombie teddy bear."

"Who wants to eat peoples' brains!"

"One of my teddy bears wanted to eat brains but we told him that oatmeal was made of brains."

People say cuckoos are crazy?

I flew to Santana's shoulder and tried to talk to her but she just stared at me. Then I even tried the male humans. One of them tried to cup me protectively in his hands until I let him have it. I'd been saving it for my newest human but sometimes you can't always get what you want.

Why, oh, why, had I agreed to join a brigade whose sworn mission was to protect living beings against the dead? Couldn't we have omitted humans?

Zombie Luciano Pavarotti lunged again at one of the humans. This time, he got even closer. I saw another car coming and figured that I could use that instead. But I had to figure out how before the car passed entirely.

_Know your enemy's weaknesses_. That was key. I didn't have pasta and I didn't have a shotgun but I did have my voice.

I started to sing, launching right into "O sole mio." That caught the zombie's attention, as I'd hoped. I repeated the opening and he was looking right at me. There, get him into position, just right, just right. He opened his mouth but this time, instead of groaning for brains or pasta, he started singing along with me.

Not only that, but he stepped into the limousine's headlights as though they were a spotlight. Dammit, I'd miscalculated. Once a tenor starts singing, you have no hope of getting him out of the spotlight and into a pile of limbs on the ground unless you've got an opposable thumb and weigh more than an ounce. And sometimes not even then.

I couldn't believe it. One of the male humans actually walked right into grabbing range, but he was singing along. "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" I shrieked and was ready to try to dive bomb some sense into him.

But you know, maybe, just maybe, there's some sense in the humans. Or maybe it's instinct that somehow they inherited from back when they and we birds still shared some common ancestry. Because the zombie tenor just spread his arms out and grinned widely.

Another one of the human males walked over and joined in, after nudging another one of the humans and saying that it wasn't like they could have expected another chance to sing with Pavarotti. "We did practice Italian songs for international week," another said, his expression changing from dubious to devil-may-care.

"I don't know the words!" Brittany was in a state of panic. Note that talking to a bird didn't do it, encountering a zombie Luciano Pavarotti didn't do it, but this had her freaking out.

The other car drew up but I didn't really have a chance of getting it to swerve and hit the zombie. But really, humans, do you need to use your cell phones to film everything? On the other hand, probably it was fair enough that he'd want to have evidence, because otherwise he just might not be believed when he said that while he was driving wherever he was going, he saw a zombified Luciano Pavarotti singing Italian songs in the headlights of a limousine with a bunch of teenage boys and two girls in cheerleader outfits. Just guessing.

* * *

Epilogue

Brittany managed to convince Zombie Pavarotti that scrambled egg white was brains.

Using Brittany's translations from bird language, I became the agent for a concert tour of 12 Warblers and a Zombie Tenor. She was a demon bargainer for her share of the management fee, but then it's a hefty management fee, so works out all right in the end.

It was interruption from Convenient Coincidence Airlines that messed up Bird Net. Should have guessed. It's back up now.

Not that I needed it, but my new-found fame didn't hurt my talking the lady canaries into experiencing some Code Name Pavarotti sweet, sweet loving. That made the Warblers change my name to Casanova which was just as well because two Pavarottis would have made things confusing.

David's and Zombie Pavarotti's big number was "Anything you can do, I can do better," especially because David often changed the lyrics to be more zombie-appropriate.

Blaine sometimes had nightmares about the time that Zombie Pavarotti tried singing the lead of California Gurls. Kurt thought it was funny but never told anybody except me.

Richard, the Warbler whose hand I'd relieved myself on, told me that he forgave me because he knew that I was frightened and didn't do it on purpose. He actually thought I was apologizing when I sassed him about what he thinks of a bird in the hand now.

Zombie Pavarotti did like Breadstix. Fortunately for them, the profits from people coming in to eat in the hopes of watching him come in with the Warblers, Brittany, and Santana more than offset the losses from that all you can eat policy. The woman who quit coming because she thought they were really serving him human brains didn't matter because she was a rotten tipper.

Santana told Brittany that she could turn into a ladybug but she didn't feel like it because she thought the wings would itch.

* * *

AN: Thanks for reading, everybody! This was a blast to write so I hope you enjoyed it, too.

Happy New Year and may all the zombies you encounter be easily appeased and when you need an emu to show up, may you get either an emu, Brittany, or at least some Warblers.


End file.
